ANA, Japan’s largest airline, announced today the inaugural flight of the final of three aircraft decorated with special Star Wars livery. Part of the previously announced ANA STAR WARS™ Project the last aircraft, the BB-8™ ANA JET (Boeing 777-300), featuring the new character from the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens, will roll out on March 27 and commence international routes.

After unveiling the aircraft in a ceremony on March 27 at Osaka’s Itami Airport, where the special livery was applied, the aircraft will make a one-off domestic flight as ANA22 from Itami to Haneda, before departing the airport at five minutes past midnight on the following day (March 29) as flight ANA106 to Los Angeles, marking the start of the aircraft’s international service. The aircraft is then scheduled to fly various international routes, principally routes linking Haneda, Narita and US – Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Houston.

Passengers on the BB-8™ ANA JET will experience the world of Star Wars with specially-designed BB-8 paper cups and headrest covers and cabin attendants will wear BB-8 aprons. On the R2-D2™ ANA JET, which is already in service (Boeing 787-9 flying international routes), cabin attendants wear R2-D2 aprons.

One lucky winner and a friend will be among the first to experience the BB-8™ ANA JET with a pair of round-trip economy class tickets from Los Angeles to Tokyo on the first outbound flight through the BB-8™ ANA JET SWEEPSTAKES. 50 other winners will receive a special BB-8™ ANA JET model plane. Fans can enter to win now. For more details, visit https://www.ana-sw.com/news/.

ANA is the largest airline in Japan by revenues and passenger numbers. Founded in 1952, ANA flies today on 81 international routes and 112 domestic routes. The ANA group has 35,000 employees and a fleet of about 250 aircraft. In FY2014, it carried 50.4 million passengers and generated revenues of 1.71 trillion Japanese yen. ANA has been a member of Star Alliance since 1999, and has joint-ventures with United Airlines on trans-Pacific and Asia routes, and with Lufthansa, Swiss International Airlines and Austrian Airlines on Japan-Europe routes. Its Frequent Flyer Program, ANA Mileage Club, has more than 26 million members. ANA was voted Airline of the Year for 2013 by Air Transport World Magazine, and in 2016 was awarded five stars for the fourth consecutive year by the world’s leading Airline and Airport review site, SKYTRAX. ANA is the launch customer and biggest operator of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.